THE greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry, innate, untold, Of being only four years old. Still young enough to be a part Of Nature's great impulsive heart, Born comrade of bird, beast and tree And unselfconscious as the bee -- And yet with lovely reason skilled Each day new paradise to build; Elate explorer of each sense, Without dismay, without pretence! In your unstained transparent eyes There is no conscience, no surprise: Life's queer conundrums you accept, Your strange divinity still kept. Being, that now absorbs you, all Harmonious, unit, integral, Will shred into perplexing bits, -- Oh, contradictions of the wits! And Life, that sets all things in rhyme, May make you poet, too, in time -- But there were days, O tender elf, When you were Poetry itself! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THEN AND NOW by CECIL DAY LEWIS NO EXEMPTION FOR TOURISTS by KAREN SWENSON TRUST by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE MANASSAS [JULY 21, 1861] by CATHERINE ANNE WARFIELD THE CHANCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |